Washboard



ZAB 7,975

p' Zi, i936 c. H. GUNTHER WASHBOARD Filed May 3l, 1954 Pff. 6.

INVENTOR- ATTORNEY- Patented Apr. 21, 1936 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 3 Claims.

Heretofore it has been proposed to construct Washboards with rubbing surfaces composed of wire mesh; but, so far as I have been able to ascertain, such attempts have not been commercially successful. 'I'he object of the present invention is to produce a wire mesh element adapted to serve as the rubbing surface of a washboard, this element being so constructed as to make it possible not only to wash fabrics, from the nest and most fragile to the coarser ones, but to permit the washing to be done more quickly and easily and with less danger of injury to the fabrics than is the case in the use of the best types of prior washboards.

The effectiveness of a washboard depends upon the character and distribution of the ridges in the rubbing surface. The more numerous the ridges, for a given length of surface, the better will be the cleansing effect. One of the objects of the present invention is to produce a wire mesh rubbing element in which the ridges may be closely spaced without employing wires that are unduly fine or a very fine mesh.

One of the difficulties heretofore encountered in the use of wire mesh on the rubbing surface of the washboard has been that the fabric enters between crossing wires, thereby causing the fabric to become torn. One of the objects of the present invention is to produce a wire mesh rubbing element of such a character that the objection just mentioned is overcome.

The various features of novelty whereby my invention is characterized will hereinafter be pointed out with particularity in the claims; but, for a full understanding of my invention and of its objects and advantages, reference may be had to the following detailed description taken in connection with the accompanying drawing, where- 1n:

Figure 1 is a front' view of a washboard embodying the present invention; Fig. 2 is a view similar to Fig. 1, showing, however, only a fragment of the wire mesh, but on a much larger scale; Fig. 3 is a transverse section through the board on a plane at right angles to the plane of the latter, the section being approximately on line 3--3 of Fig. 2; Fig. 4 is a vertical or longitudinal section through the board, on a plane at right angles to the plane of the board, the section being approximately on line 4-4 of Fig. 2; Fig. 5 is a rear elevation of the open work frame over which the wire mesh rubbing element is stretched; and Fig. 6 is a section on line 6-6 of Fig. 5.

The body portion of the washboard may, of course, be of any usual or suitable construction,

the present invention having to do with the rubbing area thereof.

My improved rubbing element is composed of wire mesh in which the wires are so disposed that they do not cross each other at right angles but form with each other diamond-shaped meshes in which the diamonds are very much flattened, the long diagonals of the diamonds being horizontal and the short diagonals being Vertical. Consequently, one half of the wires will not be horizontal and the other half vertical, as would be the case with a square mesh used in the natural Way, nor will the wires stand at an angle of 45 to the horizontal `and also to the vertical, as would be the case if a square mesh were so positioned that the diagonals thereof were respectively horizontal and vertical. The result is that, whenever a piece of fabric is held against the wire mesh and is moved down across the same, it can never enter an acute angle between two crossing wires I and 2 and thus be subjected to a wedging action that would tend to force it between such wires; but the strands which are encountered by the fabric in its downward movement always cross each other at an angle in the neighborhood of 150, and consequently the fabric rides freely over the strands. A further effect of having diamond-shaped meshes is that the high points or ridges are spaced close together throughout the length of the rubbing area, and consequently the fabric encounters many more high spots or ridges than it would if the wires were arranged diagonally so as to produce square meshes. As the number of ridges that the fabric must cross in traveling the length of the rubbing surface has an important bearing on the cleansing action of the washboard, it will be seen that the flattened diamond-shaped meshes are very advantageous, considered from this viewpoint alone.

For convenience, the wire fabric may initially be an ordinary woven fabricl having square meshes; the diamond shape being given to the meshes by properly stretching the fabric. The size of the wire and the size of the meshes may be varied according to the size of the washboard. I have obtained very fine results with washboards having a rubbing area seven or eight inches wide and eight or nine inches long by employing brass hardware cloth having eight meshes to the inch and stretched until the long dimensions of the flattened diamond-shaped openings are about a quarter of an inch long.

The wires must be very taut. It is therefore advisable to stretch the wire fabric over a rigid frame and solder it or otherwise fix it to the frame. This frame is preferably provided with cross pieces to serve as an open work backing for the rubbing element. In the arrangement sho-wn, the backing member and support for the wire fabric consists of a rectangular frame 3 of heavy Wire. Extending between the top and bottom ends of this frame are taut wires 4 somewhat lighter than the wire of the frame proper. Similar wires 5 extend transversely across the opening in the vframe between the two side members of the latter. The wires 4 and 5 are so shaped where they cross each other and Where they engage With the Wire frame, that one face of the structure contains no protuberances but presents a substantially flat surface against which the wire fabric, which constitutes the rubbing .element, may lie. The Wire fabric is stretched tightly over the flat face of the frame and is then preferably soldered to the border wire or frame proper. The entire structure lis then placed in any suitable manner in any usual or suitable washboard body 6.

The rubbing action of the diamond mesh element can readily be understood from an inspection of Fig. 2, it being evident that what may be transverse ridges are simply a series or .row of high points where wires cross each other. Assuming that a piece of fabric istraveling downward over the rubbing surface and that it 'has reached the transverse ridge containing the high points a, it will be seen that, before reaching the next corresponding ridge, in which the high points c are directly below the high points a, it must traverse the ridge containing the Vhigh points b which lies half way between the other 'two ridges just mentioned. The fourth ridge, 'indescending order, is lthat containing the high points d. It will thus be seen that eachfof fthe lridges is spaced apart from the next ridge akdistance yequal to one half the length of one -of the short #divagonals of a flattened diamond. Therefore, in the casefof a fabric inwhich an eighth inch mesh has been flattened vto produce diamonds about a quarter of an inch long, the ridgeswill be 'so close together that the high `points a and the high points h, or the high points b and the high points c, for example, lie almost'in lthe same transverse line. This arrangement not only produces a closely spaced ridge effect but, because of the large angles facing the descending work at the high points that produce the ridges, and the close spacing of the transverse lines of high points, there is no tendency, whatever, to cause the fabric to become wedged in between the wires and the fabric, in riding over the rubbing surface, will encounter only the necessary frictional resistance to bring about the desired cleansing effect.

As heretofore stated, the washing action of my improved board is very much better on fabrics of all kinds than is true with ordinary washboards. A further advantage, peculiar to woolen fabrics is that these fabrics are fluied during rubbing and therefore become very soft. This results from the fact that the high points in the rubbing surface are so closely spaced, particularly in the direction of the length of the board.

While I have illustrated and described with particularity only a single preferred form of my meshes are in the form of flattened `diamonds Whose long diagonals are several times ,as long as the short diagonals, the said -long `'-diagonals being horizontal and substantially perpendicular to the normal direction of rubbing.

3. A Washboard rubbing element comprising a rigid open-work' frame composed of a border wire and crossed wires secured at their ends 4.to -the border Wire, the wires being so .shaped that lone side jof the frame is flat, andan open-mesh wire fabric stretched tightly across the vfiat face of the frame and fixed to the frame, the meshes of the fabric being in lthe forrnof flattened diamonds.

CLARA H. GNTHER. 

